The Death of Beauty

Filch marched them down through the castle with a lamp in one hand and the back of Harry's collar in the other, and he hummed as he went, which was worse than anything he could have said.

Harry tried anyway.

'We were sleepwalking,' he said. 'Both of us. It's a condition.'

'Course you were.'

'We heard a noise. We thought it might be Peeves, and we went to...'

'Course you did.'

'Hermione dropped her... her hairbrush. Out of the window. Of the tower. And we were...'

'Mr Potter,' said Filch, with enormous satisfaction, 'I've been catching filthy, nasty, students out of bed for forty years. I have heard sleepwalking. I have heard noises. I have heard sick owls, lost toads, lucky socks and a boy who swore blind he'd been Confunded by a suit of armour. You're not even trying. Shut it.'

Harry shut it.

Filch left them in Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor with the single word 'Wait', and went off to fetch her, and the door closed behind him with a click that sounded very final.

Hermione was trembling. Excuses, alibis and wild cover stories chased one another round Harry's head, each one feebler than the last, and none of them any use at all. He couldn't see how they were going to get out of this one. They were cornered. How could they have been so stupid as to leave the Cloak behind? There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping about the castle in the dead of night, let alone for being up the tallest tower, which was out of bounds to everyone except for Astronomy. Add Norbert and the Invisibility Cloak to that, and they might as well have been packing their trunks already.

The door opened. Professor McGonagall came in, still in her tartan dressing-gown, with her hairnet gone and her grey hair in a tight plait down her back. She looked at the two of them and shook her head slowly.

'I believe,' she said, 'that I have worked out what has happened here.'

Then Harry saw who was trailing in behind her.

'Harry!' Neville burst out the moment he saw them. 'I was trying to find you, to warn you! I heard Malfoy saying she was going to catch you, she said you had a drag...'

Harry shook his head at him so violently that it hurt, and Neville stopped with his mouth open.

Harry turned back to Professor McGonagall and tried his best innocent face, which had never once worked on Aunt Petunia.

'What have you worked out, Professor?'

'That you, Potter, and no doubt Mr Weasley, who I notice is conveniently in the hospital wing, fed the Malfoy girl a perfectly ridiculous story about a dragon in order to lure her out of bed and get her into trouble. Which you have done. And that you then dragged Miss Granger and poor Mr Longbottom into it as well.' Her nostrils flared. 'Honestly, Potter. I've had more convincing lies out of feral mujahideen who were... oh, bother. Never you mind that. You're far too young.'

Harry had no idea what a mujahideen was, feral or otherwise, and no idea what Professor McGonagall could possibly have had to do with one, and the question went into a drawer in his head marked later and stayed there, because he had started stammering exactly as he'd stammered at Filch.

'Malfoy's the one lying about dragons, Professor, it wasn't anything to do with us, it was all her idea, she's mad, you saw her, you saw her bite Ron at the Quidditch match and scratch his face to...'

'Enough.' Professor McGonagall's voice came down like a lid. 'It's bad enough that you've got the Malfoy girl into trouble. Lying to poor Mr Longbottom as well is shameful.'

Hermione came suddenly alive, as though somebody had wound her up.

'You can't trust Malfoy, Professor,' she said, very fast and very high. 'You can't. She's evil. She bullies poor Harry every single day, and she'd do it ten times more if I weren't there keeping that horrible harpy away from him. He doesn't deserve her. He doesn't deserve any of it, and she...'

Professor McGonagall looked at her, and for a moment something odd passed over the stern face, a flicker of some memory that had nothing to do with Hogwarts, and had teeth. It was gone almost before Harry saw it.

'Miss Granger,' she said. 'I will remind you that you are speaking of a fellow Hogwarts student. You will treat Miss Malfoy with respect, and I shall see to it that she does the same for you.'

While this was going on, Harry was looking at Neville. He wanted to say sorry. He wanted to explain all of it, but Hermione and Professor McGonagall were talking over each other, and there wasn't a gap to say anything into.

'I am disgusted,' said Professor McGonagall. 'Four students out of bed in a single night! I have never heard of such a thing. You, Miss Granger, I thought had more sense. And as for you, Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant rather more to you than this. All three of you will have detentions. Yes, you as well, Mr Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to wander the school at night, especially at the moment, it is very dangerous. And fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor.'

'Fifty?' Harry gasped. They'd lose the lead. The lead he'd won them in the last match.

'Fifty points each,' said Professor McGonagall, breathing hard through her long nose.

'Professor, please...'

'You can't...'

'Do not tell me what I can and cannot do, Potter. Bed, all of you. I have never been so ashamed of Gryffindor students.' She paused. 'Potter. Stay behind a moment.'

Hermione and Neville shuffled out, Neville sniffing, and the door shut.

Professor McGonagall sat down behind her desk. She took something from the pocket of her dressing-gown and laid it flat on the desk between them, and smoothed it out with one finger.

It was Charlie's letter. The one that had been in Ron's book. The one Malfoy had taken.

She tapped it, once, and looked at him.

'Mr Potter,' she said. 'I have lived a very long time, and I have done things the wizarding world would not believe if I told them. So. A word of advice.'

'I... what do you mean, Professor?'

Professor McGonagall sighed.

'Just like your father. I had only just started teaching when he was up to no good, and I had this conversation with him too.'

Up to no good? Harry thought. The little he'd heard of his father made him sound well liked, a fine Quidditch player, a credit to the school. Nobody had said anything about no good.

'I'll tell you what I told him.' She leaned forward over the desk, and lowered her voice, and for a moment she didn't look like a teacher at all. 'I learned the hard way, Potter, that one is only ever punished for what one is caught doing. Please bear that in mind. I am very disappointed in you. You have a great deal to learn, it seems. I hope a hundred and fifty points is enough to make the lesson stick. Go on. Off you go.'

Harry went, wondering what on earth she'd meant.

It wasn't until he was safely in his four-poster, with Ron's empty bed beside him and Neville's muffled crying coming through the hangings, that it came to him. Professor McGonagall hadn't been angry about what he'd done. She knew about all of it. She'd read Charlie's letter. She knew about the dragon and the tower and very probably the Cloak, and she had stood in front of Malfoy and called the whole thing a ridiculous lie. She'd covered for him. If she was angry about anything at all, it was that he'd got caught.

That wasn't how teachers were supposed to behave, Harry thought. He lay awake over it for a long time.

A hundred and fifty points, though. That put Gryffindor last. In one night they'd wrecked any chance Gryffindor had of the House Cup. Harry felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. How could they ever make that up?

He didn't sleep. He could hear Neville sobbing into his pillow for what seemed like hours, and he couldn't think of a single thing to say that would help. He knew Neville was dreading the morning as much as he was. What would happen when the rest of Gryffindor found out? He was still dwelling on that when sleep finally got him anyway.

At first the Gryffindors who passed the giant hour-glasses in the Entrance Hall the next morning simply assumed there'd been a mistake. Harry saw the whole thing from the stairs, and it was like the beginning of one of the horror films Dudley watched with the sound up, the part where the characters start to notice that something has gone very wrong. The rubies in the Gryffindor glass were much, much lower than they had been. How could they possibly have lost a hundred and fifty points overnight?

And then the story began to go round. Harry Potter. The famous Harry Potter. The hero of two Quidditch matches. He'd lost them all those points, him and a couple of other stupid first-years.

There was no more admiration for the Boy Who Lived, or for the Seeker who'd won two games on the trot. In a single morning Harry had become the most hated boy in the school. Even the Hufflepuffs hated him, though they were still sore about Dean's singing, and so did the Ravenclaws, because everyone had wanted to see Slytherin lose the Cup for once. Everywhere he went, people pointed, and nobody bothered to lower their voice. The Slytherins, on the other hand, clapped as he passed, and whistled, and called, 'Cheers, Potter! We owe you one!'

Only Ron stood by him. Ron, out of the hospital wing with his hand bandaged and his ear still bruised, walked beside him down every corridor and glared at anybody who so much as muttered. Harry had never known anyone so loyal, and he felt very lucky to have him, and very guilty, all over again, for shoving him away from the mirror at Christmas and for the mean, hot thing he'd felt about Ron's mum and the jumper.

'Nothing to worry about, mate,' Ron said at lunch. 'You heard about the stuff Fred and George have got up to? They've lost Gryffindor loads of points over the years, and people always calm down in the end.'

'I wonder why Gryffindor keeps losing the Cup,' said Harry drily. 'And they never lost a hundred and fifty bloomin' points in one go, did they?'

'No. No, you're right.' Ron looked dejected for a moment, and then perked up. 'But cheer up. We'll sort it out somehow.'

And oddly, that did make Harry feel better, for a while.

It was a bit late to mend the damage, but Harry swore to himself that from now on he would keep his nose out of things that didn't concern him. He'd had enough of sneaking about and spying. He was so ashamed of himself that he went to Wood and offered to resign from the team.

'Resign?' Wood thundered. 'No, you're not allowed to. I won't let you. How are we meant to win any points back if we can't win at Quidditch?'

But even Quidditch had stopped being fun. The rest of the team wouldn't speak to Harry at practice, and when they had to speak about him, they called him 'the Seeker'.

Hermione and Neville were suffering too. They had it less badly than Harry, because they weren't as well known, but nobody spoke to them either. Hermione had stopped putting her hand up in lessons and sat with her head down, working in silence.

Harry was almost glad the exams were so close. All the revision kept his mind off his misery. He, Ron and Hermione kept to themselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients of complicated potions, learning charms and spells by heart, memorising the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions.

Then, about a week before the exams began, Harry's new resolution to keep out of things that didn't concern him was put to a test he hadn't expected.

Walking back from the library alone one afternoon, he heard somebody whimpering in a classroom up ahead. As he came closer, he recognised Quirrell's voice.

'No... no... not again, please...'

It sounded as though somebody was threatening him. Harry edged closer.

'All right... all right...' he heard Quirrell sob.

Next second Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom, straightening his turban. He was white, and looked as though he was about to cry, and he strode off out of sight without seeming to notice Harry at all. Harry waited until the footsteps had died away, then put his head round the door. The classroom was empty, but a door at the far end stood ajar. Harry was halfway across the room towards it before he remembered what he'd promised himself about meddling.

All the same, he'd have bet twelve Philosopher's Stones that Snape had just left by that door, and from what Harry had heard, Snape would be walking with a new spring in his step. Quirrell had given in at last.

Harry went back to the library, where Hermione was testing Ron on Astronomy, and told them what he'd heard.

'Snape's done it, then!' said Ron. 'If Quirrell's told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell...'

'There's still Fluffy,' said Hermione.

'Maybe Snape's found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid,' said Ron, looking up at the thousands of books around them. 'I bet there's a book in here somewhere that tells you how to get past a giant three-headed dog. So what do we do, Harry?'

The light of adventure was kindling in Ron's eyes again, but Hermione got in before Harry could answer.

'We go to Dumbledore. That's what we should've done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves we'll be thrown out for certain.'

'But we've got no proof!' said Harry. 'Quirrell's too frightened to back us up. Snape only has to say he doesn't know how the troll got in at Hallowe'en and that he was nowhere near the third floor. Who d'you think they'll believe, him or us? It's not exactly a secret we hate him, Dumbledore will think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help us if his life depended on it, he's far too pally with Snape, and the more students get thrown out, the happier he'll be. And don't forget, we're not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy at all. That'd take some explaining.'

Hermione looked convinced. Ron didn't.

'If we just did a bit of poking about...'

'No,' said Harry flatly. 'We've done enough poking about.'

He pulled a map of Jupiter towards him and started learning the names of its moons. Professor McGonagall had been right. He had a great deal to learn, and the first lesson was that he didn't want to be caught again, so he'd bloody well do nothing that could get him caught. Sod the Stone. Snape could have it, and live for ever with his greasy hair and his hooked nose. Was Snape one of those people Aunt Petunia... no. They didn't seem to have those at Hogwarts, or in the wizarding world at all, so far as Harry could tell. He went back to Jupiter.

The next morning, notes were delivered to Harry, Hermione and Neville at breakfast. They were all the same.

Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight. Meet Professor Quirrell in the Entrance Hall.

Prof. M. McGonagall

In the darkness over the points, Harry had completely forgotten they still had detentions to do. He half expected Hermione to complain about a whole evening of revision lost, but she didn't say a word. Like Harry, she felt they deserved whatever they got.

At eleven o'clock that night Harry and Hermione went down to the Entrance Hall with Neville. Quirrell was already there, holding a lamp. So was Malfoy.

Harry had forgotten that Malfoy had got a detention too. She barely glanced at him. She lifted her nose, turned her back on him, and stood there with her own lamp glowing, and that was that.

'F-f-follow m-me,' said Quirrell. 'I n-need to c-collect s-s-samples for our less-ssons. Y-you can h-help.'

Harry noticed that Quirrell, stutter or no stutter, seemed agitated. He kept looking over his shoulder, and then over the other one, and his lamp shook. Why was he such a strange man?

'B-be assured I shall b-be a f-firm hand!' Quirrell added, in a tone that would have been firm from anyone who wasn't such a wreck.

Harry doubted very much that Quirrell's hand was anything but shaky and liable to faint, like the rest of him.

They set off across the dark grounds. Quirrell had done a charm to light the path ahead. Neville kept sniffing. The moon was bright, but the clouds racing across it kept plunging them into darkness, and as they went on past the greenhouses and the pumpkin patch, Harry saw that they were heading straight for the Forbidden Forest.

'Professor,' said Hermione. 'Aren't we forbidden to go into the Forbidden Forest? It's rather in the name.'

Quirrell blinked and made a face. If it had been lighter, Harry would have seen that the face was irritation, but it was gone before his eyes could adjust.

'I have special permission to take you,' said Quirrell.

He said it without a single stutter. Harry noticed. It was odd.

'Sh-shouldn't be long. Just n-need a f-few things. M-mushrooms. Sp-spotted fire mushrooms. Herbs. Th-things of that n-nature.'

'We need rather more information than that, Professor!' said Malfoy. 'I understood we'd be writing lines, not going into the Forbidden Forest, which is dangerous, I might add. This is work for servants. For house-elves. I've got one myself, and if you'd simply...'

'I'll tell you when I'm damn well ready!' said Quirrell.

Again, no stutter at all. Malfoy seemed a good deal more put out at being shouted at than at anything else. She pouted.

'My father will hear of this,' she muttered.

They went in under the trees, and the darkness closed over them like water. Quirrell's light bobbed ahead. The path wound and narrowed, and roots caught at their feet, and somewhere off to the left something large moved through the undergrowth and then stopped.

'A-ah. There we are,' said Quirrell.

He'd stopped and was pointing his lamp at the ground. Something silvery lay on the path in a long thin smear, catching the light.

'The, er, m-mushrooms excrete a l-liquid. Silver. L-like this.'

'I haven't read about any mushroom that does that, Professor,' said Hermione.

'You're only a f-first-year, M-miss Granger.'

Hermione pouted, and Malfoy laughed.

'Looks like the Mudblood doesn't know as much as she thinks she does,' she said.

The look Hermione gave her would have killed a lesser girl where she stood. It didn't seem to touch Dracina Malfoy, who sauntered on after Quirrell with her lamp held high.

For a while everything went well enough. Quirrell followed the silver trail, which went from a smear to a line of splashes, and then to great dark blotches that gleamed where the light caught them. Malfoy and Hermione traded insults over Harry's head as if he weren't there. Quirrell didn't seem to hear them. He'd gone very quiet, and his eyes never left the trail, and he walked faster and faster until the three of them were almost trotting to keep up.

Then he stopped dead and his head came up.

'D-do you hear that?'

Harry listened. He couldn't hear a thing except the ordinary noises of the Forest: leaves, a far-off owl, the creak of a branch.

Quirrell screamed. It was a high, theatrical scream, and before any of them could speak he had bolted off the path into the trees with his lamp swinging wildly, and the light went with him.

'Professor!'

'Professor Quirrell! Come back!'

They crashed after him. Branches whipped at Harry's face, and brambles snatched at his robes, and the light ahead got smaller and jumped about and then went out altogether, and he ran into a tree trunk, and when he pushed himself off it and turned round there was nobody there. No Hermione. No Neville. No lamp. Only the Forest, and the dark.

'Potter!'

A light came swinging round a tree. It was Malfoy. She was holding the only lamp left in the Forest, and her face above it was as smug as ever.

'Oh, you're speaking to me now, Malfoy?'

'What do you care, Potter?'

'I don't, actually.'

'Fine, then!'

She huffed, and folded her arms, and then looked round at the trees, and Harry watched the smugness drain out of her face.

'We're lost,' she said.

'Yes,' said Harry, trying not to sound as worried as he felt. 'We'll have to find our own way out.'

'Escort me!'

She held out her hand.

'What? No. Not after everything I've had to put up with from you all year.'

'You will escort me, Potter. It's your duty as a wizard to escort a young witch.'

'No, you're alright.'

The ugly look came over her face, the Dudley look, the one he'd seen on Christmas mornings at Privet Drive when the present wasn't the right present. Then it slid away, and in its place came a smug little grin, and something else, something in her eyes that Harry couldn't put a name to.

'You owe me a favour. Don't you remember, Potter? You said so.'

Harry snorted.

'Malfoy, I was taking the p...'

'No, you weren't!' She came right up close, and her face was red in the lamplight. 'You owe me. If it's not for the Remembrall, then it's for the toilets. After what Granger said to me in those toilets I'd have been within my rights to tell every teacher in the school everything, and I didn't.'

'What did Hermione say to you?'

'Is that all you care about, Potter? It doesn't matter. She was wrong.'

'Fine. Whatever. Why did you lie for us, then?'

Malfoy opened her mouth to answer. Then both of them heard it: a snap in the trees behind her, close, and heavy. Malfoy screamed and jumped forward, and before Harry had moved a muscle her hand was in his, gripping hard, and she was staring up at him with a look he had never seen on her face before, nothing like her usual look at all.

He was going to let go. He'd meant to. But in that second he saw her, Dracina Malfoy, without the nose in the air and the sneer, and all that was left was a frightened girl in a dark wood, and the part of every boy that has ever read a story about a girl in trouble woke up in Harry and would not let him leave her there.

'Fine,' he said. 'Come on, then. Hold the light up so we can see where we're going.'

'All right, Harry,' said Malfoy.

Harry was so cross with the whole situation that he didn't notice she said his first name, or that in the dark, the smile that had broken out across Dracina Malfoy's face, as wide and bright as any smile had ever been, or that her eyes were shining, or that she wasn't looking at the path at all. She was looking at him, and she went on looking at him, and she didn't let go. Because her Knight was finally protecting his Princess. Just like in the stories her mother used to read to her as a little girl.

Then red sparks went up over the trees ahead of them.

'That'll be Hermione and Neville,' said Harry. 'And Quirrell, I hope.'

'Of course,' said Malfoy.

Harry took it for her usual haughtiness, and didn't see her face darken, or wonder why her hand tightened on his.

They walked towards the place where the sparks had gone up. It took some time, and the whole way there Malfoy would not let go of his hand.

'I must be escorted,' she said, when he tried. 'You owe me, Harry.'

His first name again. What a strange girl she was.

The trees thinned, and they came out into a small clearing. It was dark, and very still, and there was a smell to it Harry didn't like. He realised that Malfoy had gone from holding his hand to pressing against his side, and he tried to ease her off, but her grip was harder than Ron's on the last slice of steak-and-kidney pie. She was plainly terrified, so he let her stay. Perhaps if he let her, she'd be a bit less cruel to him afterwards. And there was a part of Harry, which he would never have admitted to anyone, that quite liked having her cling to him like that. It made him feel -

Something moved at the edge of the clearing.

A unicorn stepped out of the trees.

It shimmered. There was no other word for it. Light seemed to come off it in soft waves, and as it walked, small pale flowers opened in the grass round its hooves and glowed, hundreds of them, until the whole clearing was lit up as if by moonlight, and it was the most beautiful thing Harry had ever seen in his life.

Then he realised that Malfoy had let go of him.

She was walking towards it. And the unicorn was walking towards her, with its head lowered, it came right up to her and stood there, and Dracina Malfoy, who was spoilt and cruel and had bitten Ron's ear, put out her hand and laid it on the white neck as gently as if it might break.

That was when Harry saw the wound. It was on the far side of the neck, low down, and it was bleeding slowly, and the blood was silver. The same silver as the trail Quirrell had followed through the trees.

Why would Quirrell lie about a thing like that?

A shape came out of the trees on the other side of the clearing.

It was hooded and cloaked and black, and it moved wrong, too low and too quick, and it raised an arm, and a jet of green light hit the unicorn in the side.

Pain went through Harry's head like a nail. It came from his scar. His scar was on fire. He doubled over, clutching at it, and through streaming eyes he saw the light go out of the unicorn, all at once, as though somebody had thrown a switch. The shimmer, the glow, the flowers, the strength and the pride and the beauty of it, gone in an instant, and the unicorn folded up, fell over on its side, and was dead.

A great wave of sadness went through Harry, so heavy that for a moment he couldn't breathe, as if the whole world had felt it and was grieving.

The black shape dropped to all fours and crawled towards the body, low and fast, like some ugly beast stalking.

Harry stumbled forward and grabbed Malfoy, who hadn't moved, who was standing with her hand still out where the unicorn's neck had been, and dragged her back. She looked at the thing in the clearing. She looked at Harry. Then she screamed, and tore herself out of his grip, then she ran, and the trees swallowed her and the lamp with her.

Harry was alone with it.

It had its hood bent over the wound in the unicorn's side. He could hear it. Then it lifted its head, and silver blood ran down the front of the cloak, and it began to come towards him.

Harry's scar flared again and he went down on his knees in the grass with his hands over his face. He couldn't see. He could barely think. And then, through the pain, he heard hooves. Something was galloping, fast, across the clearing, and there was a snarl and a sound of something being struck, and the hooves wheeled and went past him, and the pain began, slowly, to let go.

It was a full minute before Harry could lift his head. The black shape was gone. Standing over him, with his flanks heaving, was a centaur.

He had white-blond hair, a palomino body, and eyes of an astonishing pale blue, like sapphires held up to the light.

'Are you hurt?' he said, and pulled Harry to his feet.

'No. Thank you. What was that?'

The centaur didn't answer. He looked closely at Harry, and his eyes rested on the scar, which stood out livid on Harry's forehead.

'You are the Potter boy,' he said. 'You had better get back to Hagrid. The Forest isn't safe tonight. Least of all for you. Can you ride? It will be quicker.'

Hagrid? thought Harry. Was Hagrid in the Forest too?

'My name is Firenze,' the centaur added, and he lowered himself on to his front legs so that Harry could scramble on to his back.

There was a thunder of more hooves from the far side of the clearing, and two more centaurs burst out of the trees, sweating and blowing.

'Firenze!' roared the bigger of them, who was black-haired and black-bodied. 'What is this? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you some common mule?'

'Do you know who this is, Bane?' said Firenze. 'This is the Potter boy. The sooner he's out of the Forest, the better.'

'What have you been telling him?' Bane growled. 'Remember, Firenze. We have sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is coming in the movements of the planets?'

The other centaur, who was red-haired and had a mournful face, pawed the ground.

'I'm sure Firenze meant it for the best,' he said gloomily.

Bane lashed out with his hind legs in fury.

'For the best! What's that to us? Centaurs concern themselves with what has been foretold! It is no business of ours to go trotting about after stray humans like donkeys!'

Firenze reared up on his hind legs so suddenly that Harry had to clutch at his shoulders to stay on.

'Do you not see that unicorn?' Firenze bellowed. 'Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets kept that from you too? I set myself against what is lurking in this Forest, Bane. Yes. With humans beside me if I must.'

And he wheeled round and plunged off into the trees with Harry hanging on as best he could, leaving Bane and the other centaur behind.

Harry hadn't the faintest idea what any of it meant.

'Why's Bane so angry?' he said. 'And what was that thing you saved me from?'

Firenze slowed to a walk and told Harry to keep his head down for the low branches, and didn't answer. They went through the trees in silence for so long that Harry decided the centaur didn't want to talk to him any more. But in a particularly dense part of the Forest, Firenze suddenly stopped.

'Harry Potter. Do you know what unicorn blood is used for?'

'No,' said Harry, startled. 'We've only used the horn and the tail hair in Potions.'

'That is because it is a monstrous thing to kill a unicorn,' said Firenze. 'Only one with nothing to lose and everything to gain would do it. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive when you are an inch from death. But at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself, and from the moment the blood touches your lips you will have only half a life. A cursed life.'

Harry stared at the back of Firenze's head, silver where the moonlight dappled it.

'But who'd be that desperate?' he said aloud. 'If you're going to be cursed for ever, you'd be better off dead, wouldn't you?'

'You would,' Firenze agreed. 'Unless all you needed was to stay alive long enough to drink something else. Something that would give you back your strength and your power. Something that would mean you could never die at all. Mr Potter. Do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?'

'The Philosopher's Stone! Of course. The Elixir of Life. But I don't understand who...'

'Can you think of no one who has waited years to come back to power? Who has clung to life, and waited for his chance?'

It was as though an iron fist had closed round Harry's heart. Over the rustle of the leaves he seemed to hear Hagrid again, on the night they'd met: Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die.

'Do you mean,' Harry croaked, 'that was Vol...'

'Harry! Harry, are you all right?'

Hermione was running down the path towards them, with Hagrid puffing along behind her.

'I'm fine,' said Harry, hardly knowing what he was saying. 'The unicorn's dead, Hagrid. It's in a clearing back there.'

'This is where I leave you,' Firenze murmured, as Hagrid hurried past to see. 'You are safe now.'

Harry slid off his back.

'Good luck, Harry Potter,' said Firenze. 'The planets have been read wrongly before now. Even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times.'

He turned and cantered away into the trees, and Harry stood shivering where he'd left him.

'There yeh are, Harry!' Hagrid's voice boomed out behind him. He was coming back along the path with his crossbow over his shoulder and Fang at his heels, and walking in front of him, with her lamp, was Dracina Malfoy.

Something in Harry's chest let go at the sight of her, which he wouldn't have admitted under torture. She wouldn't look at him. She kept trying to put on the smug, haughty face, the one he knew so well, and it kept slipping, and even somebody as slow about these things as Harry could see there was something underneath it. Fear? Shame? Did she actually care that she'd run off and left him? No. Of course not. She was a Malfoy.

'Come on, Harry. I've already found Hermione an' Neville, they're jus' through them trees. I dunno what Quirrell was thinkin' of, bringin' you lot out here. We'd best find him.'

Harry was reunited with Hermione and Neville, and the five of them, with Hagrid and Fang, searched for two whole hours and found neither hide nor hair of Professor Quirrell. In the end Hagrid said he'd look for the man himself, and that he was taking the four of them back up to the castle first and no arguments.

Harry was so far away inside his own head that he never noticed Dracina Malfoy fall into step beside him three separate times on the way back, and open her mouth, and say something that began with 'I' and never got any further. By the time they reached the oak doors she'd given up.

'Potter, you're such an idiot!' she said, and stamped off towards the dungeons in a huff.

Hermione, for her part, had hissed and tutted at Malfoy every time she came within six feet of Harry, which Harry understood even less than Malfoy's hot and cold. As the three of them climbed wearily up towards Gryffindor Tower, Harry found that he was beginning to understand, as every boy does eventually, exactly what Ron's dad had meant.

'Women...' he whispered to himself, and hoped Hermione hadn't heard.

Ron had fallen asleep in the dark common room waiting for them. He shouted something about Quidditch fouls when Harry shook him roughly awake, but within seconds he was wide-eyed, as Harry began to tell him and Hermione what had happened in the Forest.

Harry couldn't sit down. He paced up and down in front of the fire. He was still shaking.

'Snape wants the Stone for Voldemort... and Voldemort's waiting in the Forest... and all this time we thought Snape just wanted to be rich...'

'Stop saying the bloody name!' Ron whispered, terrified, as though Voldemort might hear them.

Harry wasn't listening.

'Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have. Bane was furious. He kept going on about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen. They must show that Voldemort's coming back. Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me. I suppose that's written in the stars too.'

'Will you stop saying the name!' Ron hissed.

'So all I've got to do now is wait for Snape to steal the Stone,' Harry went on feverishly, 'and then Voldemort can come and finish me off. Well. I suppose that'll make Bane happy.'

Hermione looked very frightened, but she had a word of comfort, and as she said it she took hold of Harry's arm, rather as Dracina had held his hand in the Forest, and with as hard a grip.

'Harry, everyone says Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore here, You-Know-Who won't touch you. And anyway, who says the centaurs are right? It sounds like fortune-telling to me, and Professor McGonagall says that's a very imprecise branch of magic.'

The sky had gone light before they stopped talking. They went up to bed exhausted, with their throats sore.

But the night's surprises weren't quite over.

When Harry pulled back his sheets, he found his Invisibility Cloak folded neatly underneath them. There was a note pinned to it.

Just in case.